Spring has Sprung

....Well, I hope so, anyway.  I really don't like the Winter!

It was my turn to set the challenge for The Daring Cardmakers this week and I've gone with a Spring theme - though with the twist of adding a bit of spring, bounce, swing, pop up or other movement to the cards!

* * * * * Celebrating Spring! * * * * *
I'd like you to  have some fun and celebrate all things Spring with cards featuring something that springs or bounces - 'virtual gold stars' if you can get a real moving element in there too.
There ere are some fantastic ideas over on the blog to get you thinking, and we've added a note to each one to tell you more

It's been ages since I made a "card in a box", and I thought this would be a good excuse to make another one - I love the way they fold flat enough to fit in an envelope and then pop out into a box shape with the surprise of the contents spilling out.  I wanted to use wire curled into springs for whatever I put inside the 'box', so  there was just deciding what that would be.
Although initially it was going to be flowers, I'd been using a lovely butterfly stencil during the week (see precious post), and I wasn't ready to put that away ..... plus, I have new butterfly dies to play with, so I made this:

Folded up it looks like this, with a belly band to keep it closed

Info

First step was to tape the 12x12 stencil to an A4 sheet of white card and add the colours - I wanted to keep the shades nice and Spring-like this time, but still add depth with different tones. 

My last project with this stencil used a cream  base and more grungy colours [HERE]

Stencil; Prima: Finnabair; 12x12 Butterflies
Inks, applied with bunched-up pieces of dry baby wipe
various VersaCraft, VersaMagic and Colourbox chalk inks

The card was cut down to size and inked on the reverse side with a couple of shades of blue Distress Inks  

Next I made the 'box', folding and creasing to create the shape and cutting along the lines for the flaps.  For this box card, I left one crease uncut so that 2 of the 'faces' remained connected and the card then displayed on a more diagonal aspect. I added three spacer pieces of card to the inside  for adding the wired butterflies - but two would have been enough, really!

The clouds were hand-cut and adhered in place - but only at one end of each cloud so they could also be made to stand away from the base card

The Butterflies are all die cut from scraps of Bazzill card.  I attached the wires, curling one end concealing it with a matching punched circle of card to make it as 'safe' as possible - I hate the thought of people hurting themselves on sharp wire ends

The other end of each wire was also curled in and then secured by wrapping in a paper strip before forming the spirals and gluing in place onto the spacer bars inside the box

Extra butterflies were added to the two flaps, and a layered version to the belly band.

Butterfly dies: Memory Box, Spellbinders, 

Apple Blossom (from CraftStashUK), Ultimate Crafts 

and the tiny one from DieNamics

(Yes, I have quite a collection!)

Border Punch for belly band from EK Success

The fiddly bit is attaching the wires to the butterflies and then to the spacer bars.  They have a naughty tendency to twist themselves together in that way threads and wires get into knots without any help from humans.  Otherwise there's nothing complicated about this sort of card.  Using wires means you can rearrange the butterflies (or whatever) in a way that you can't when acrylic strips are used to fix in place, so you can amuse yourself for ages rearranging everything!

Anyway, that's it for today, I hope you like my card and will feel inspired to join in with The Daring Cardmakers and make a card with a bit of a spring or bounce, twirl or wobble about it to share with us this week!

Butterfly Trio. Gift Bag Tutorial

I've a Gift Bag, Tag and Greetings card to share today - they form my project for Bubbly Funk this week.  I've also added a tutorial for the gift bag which you can find further down this post.

Info
Cream (Classic Texture) Bazzill card, 12x12
Stencilled all over using 12x12 Butterfly stencil
 (Prima: Finnabair; 12x12 Butterflies)
Inks, applied with bunched-up pieces of dry baby wipe
 (various VersaCraft, and VersaMagic inks plus some stencil paints and Gold Alchemy Wax)

Starting in the centre of the 12x12 sheet and moving the whole piece around regularly seemed to work for getting good coverage of the different shades rather than a lot of one colour in one place and none of it somewhere else! I kept building up the colours and moving the sheet around until I liked the look of it all - a 12x12 sheet is a big piece to cover when you want to use a lot of different colours!

Once dry I went ahead an made the gift bag - years ago, I made one of these for the old Bubbly Funk Blog, but the page is no longer available, so I've now added the tutorial to the bottom of this post.

For the tag and card I used another piece of the cream Bazzill

The tag was decorated using the same colours, but this time I used just a small section from another 12x12 stencil (Crafter's Workshop Mod Spirals)

The butterfly is cut with scissors from the strip of stencilled card left-over after cutting what I needed for the bag.  I added a double bow of narrow purple ribbon to the top, and gold twine to tie it in place.  The butterfly body is from a die set (Memory Box)

For the card I made a background using  a light covering of the same inks (just what was left on the wipes), then I got a bit carried away with the stencilling and layered two stencils on top of each other - just to see what happened, really!

(Prima Stacked Stones and Honeycomb)

I adhered the stencilled panel to some dull gold paper, and then this panel to a 7 x 14cm cream card blank.

I decorated with more cut out butterflies, more purple ribbon, a Tiny tag with sticker sentiment and some Gold Glitter

Stencils used:

Prima: Finnabair; 12x12 Butterflies (sorry, sold out)

Stencil: Crafters Workshop - 12x12 - Mod Spirals

Stencil: Prima Stacked Stones

Stencil: Prima Finnabair; Honeycomb

Gift Bag Tutorial

This little gift bag stands about 16cms high, is 10cms across and about 4cms deep.

To make it you'll need

1 sheet of 12x12 card or good, heavy quality scrapbooking paper 

Twine/string/piping or braid in matching colour for the handles, 

Strong glue, Bone Folder, Ruler, Scissors etc 

  1.  Cut the sheet of card to 29x22cms then measure and fold on the lines as shown on the diagram (click for larger view)

2.  Now mark and cut out the sections shown in red on the diagram below

3. Your card should now look something like the photo below.  This pic is of what will be the inside, so take notice of which way the folds go and make the creases on your card go the same way. 

  4. Now turn the card over so that the right side is uppermost, and the tabbed section is on the left. 

5.  Bring the two ends of the bag round to meet, apply glue to the tab area and stick so that the tab is on the inside of the bag

* Squeeze the sides of the bag inwards, then squash flat and rub over the folds with a bone folder to really set the creases well

*Now apply glue to the inside edges of the upper folded section and tuck it into the bag - the photo shows this being done

 6. Turn the bag upside down so that the end with all the cut out triangles is on top to do the next bit.  It's a bit fiddly to get everything lined up and shaped neatly so use enough glue to keep it "wet" for long enough for you to do any tweaking that's needed!

*First, apply glue to the small end bits and stick down one of the longer flaps as shown

 

  * Now apply glue to the edges of the other longer flap and

 stick that down too.

* Try to make the corners neatly squared off: in the photo below you can see that this wasn't quite right - but as the glue was still wet I was able to "wiggle" the flaps a bit and get it right

* Once you're happy, stand the bag the right way up on your craft mat (in case any glue oozes out) and push something like a ruler, or a the handle end of a wooden spoon all over the inside base of the bag to make sure it's all firmly stuck together.

7.  Punch holes for the handles

Cut a couple of pieces of piping, ribbon or twine each measuring about 15cms, thread through the holes and make knots on the inside - take care to make them the same length!

 Now you can decorate the gift bag, make a tag to match and generally have fun prettifying it!

***********************

Let me know if you make one, I'd love to see!  Once you've got the basic idea, it's easy to adapt the instructions to make smaller ones for teeny gifts, or you could glue two sheets of card together and adjust the measurements to make something much larger

Thank you for visiting today, I hope you'll take a minute to leave a comment :)